Railway to print advertisement on reservation tickets

New Delhi: Railways have decided to print advertisement on passenger reservation system tickets in order to generate additional earnings through commercial publicity, Lok Sabha was informed on 6 September.

The message through advertisements should not be socially offensive and should be in keeping with public morality, Minister of State for Railways R. Velu informed the House.

A pilot project for installation of approximately 300 smart card based Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) in suburban stations of Central and Western railways will be undertaken by the end of this year, he said, adding provision of installing ATVMs at 1,400 stations has been sanctioned.

Velu said Railways have budgeted for a cash surplus of Rs16,082 crores after dividend in the current year. This surplus amount is utlised to finance the augmentation of track and rolling stock and replacement of the railway infrastructure.

The minister also informed that about Rs800 crores would be spent on the sanitation of service buildings including stations, residential colonies and coaches. A special campaign has been launched to mark the year 2007 as “cleanliness year”.

He said Railways have set cyber cafes at 24 railway stations including Jodhpur, Ludhiana, Mysore, Nagpur, Sealdah and Lucknow and all are functioning now.

Velu also mentioned Railways have sustained an estimated loss of approximately Rs38,905,000 to the property due to the 24 hours economic blockade called by the Maoists in June.

It has been also decided to explore the feasibility of additional transport volumes by leveraging surplus railway land through development of agro-retail outlets and supply chains.